I sent the first five pages of my newest story to my writer friend.
That story gets worked on slowly, by the way. Achingly slowly. In fact, I downright avoid the thing.
However, I had managed five pages or so, so I sent them. He called me back. He said, "Clearly you know how to write and need no instruction on the art of writing."
(This compliment I quite obviously memorized, from sheer delight.)
However, he gave me two tasks. One was to describe myself. He said I described so completely what I was seeing that he could not see myself in it at all.
I must be able to step in and out of my own skin, in a pleasing and well rounded way, so the reader sees first the child seeing, and then the sight itself, or visa versa, or simultaneously. Just so long as there are both things to see.
That was the easier task. The second task was to connect the dots. He said from reading my descriptions he knew that I was seeing what lay below the surface, but I wasn't allowing myself to actually talk about what was under the surface.
He said, ask the question.
That's the harder task.
He sent me the memoir, An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard. I keep turning down the corners of pages as I go along:
"I was too aware to do this, and had done it anyway. What could touch me now? For what were the people on Penn Avenue to me, or what was I to myself, really, but a witness to any boldness I could muster, or any cowardice if it came to that, any giving up on heaven for the sake of dignity on earth? I had not seen a great deal accomplished in the name of dignity, ever."
Last night we experienced the Night of the Living Cockroach, which is a thriller. In this thriller, one's unsuspecting husband, in his cotton shorts and clean socks, turns back the newly washed sheets. There he finds a cockroach all of two inches long, glistening in the light and making with all haste for the headboard.
The next scene, with compassionate editing for the sake of the husband, will be focused conveniently on the paper lamp shade. Note the soothing light, with its narrow creases of amber and white, and attendant oblong shadow cast against the wall. We will use but one adjective for this scene and that adjective is: vehement.
Next, all is chaos as the villain is insulted, searched for and threatened, but never found. Mattresses must be upended, dogs must be uprooted, and headboards pried from the wall. Pillows, made buoyant by passion, are tossed through the air.
Poison foam was sprayed upon every surface, and then sprayed again. Some people put lavender scent on their pillows; last night, we slept with insect killer haunting our troubled dreams. Even in our shallow sleep, the edges of the mattress loomed large.
In the morning, we found the dead body of our interloper. He lay upon his back by the French doors, as if, in his death throes, he had tried with fading instinct to make for the great outdoors and sweet, sweet freedom.
No such luck for him. If his relatives live nearby, let this be a lesson to them- no one here wants a sequel.
It is settled. We are heading up to Indiana for Thanksgiving.
This afternoon I rested my arms on the back of the couch and surveyed my reclining husband, who was peaceably watching Netflix. "What?" he asked.
"Are you ready?"
"For what?"
"For the holidays."
The light died in his eyes. "No," he said gravely, and then began to chuckle, shaking his head slowly. "No. Not at all. Are you?"
"No. No way."
Ready or not, here it comes.
